Ogun Drum Festival self sustaining – Amosun

The Governor of Ogun State, has said that the recently concluded Drum Festival, hosted by the state, generated a lot of income for both Ogun indigenes and the state government.

While speaking to state house correspondents, he said the festival would be self sustaining because of the level of income it generated.

In a courtesy visit to President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, Mr Amosun said the festival was not only a success for the state, but also for the country and Africa as a whole.

“To the Glory of God it was very successful. We were expecting that we will just have may be 10 participants form the international community; within the continent of Africa.

“We never expected that we are going to have participants from outside Africa and little did we know that we were going to end up with about 23 states within the nation and over 80 individual participants at the drum festival.

“All we were trying to do was to use the instrumentality of the drum as a vehicle or catalyst for socio-economic development as well as a boost for our tourism sector; and clearly we got more than what we expected,” Mr. Amosun said.

The Ogun State Governor also said all the money spent on the festival was realised and even surpassed.

“It created so much wealth for our people. A lot of people got doing something and we leveraged on the value chain of the drum festival.

“Whatever money that we spent was realised and even surpassed and that’s why we hereby state that clearly and gradually the festival will be self driven because we got a lot of partners,” he said.

On how subsequent festivals would be improved, he said the state has learnt a lot form the experiences of authorities in literature like Wole Soyinka and that the lessons would be used in improving drum festivals to come.

Due to the potentials of the festival in terms of income generation, Mr. Amosun said he believes the festival would be sustained by future leaders of the state.